Exploiting BIM for the Management, Operation and Maintenance of your assets [Part 1]

In general, the operational phase of a building is a path full of pitfalls in retrieving, processing, and maintaining building information data. Today, more and more public or private actors are aware of the importance of asset management data. Indeed, when we know that 70 to 80% of the cost of the overall life cycle of a structure concerns the operational phase, project owners have every interest in implementing an efficient data management strategy coupled with new innovation technologies such as BIM. In this first part, we will therefore discuss the different ways of structuring and exchanging data related to the BIM model, so that they are made available to the various actors in building management. In the second part of this article, we will present various use cases of the BIM model associated with the operation and maintenance of buildings.

FM, AM, PM and BIM quesaco?

Before getting to the heart of the matter and understanding the advantages of a BIM approach in management/operation/maintenance for buildings, it is important to specify three concepts, which are:

• facility management or general services management;
• property management or asset management;
• asset management or asset management.

Facility management (FM)

According to IFMA (international facility management association), facility management is a profession that brings together many disciplines and aims to ensure the optimal functioning, safety and comfort of the built environment while integrating the processes, technologies and occupants of the building. Thus, facility management is a generic term that encompasses both operation and maintenance, which is increasingly identified as an area of value creation for companies, as we explained in this article.

Asset Management (AM)

Asset management, or asset management, is in charge of the strategy for the acquisition and resale of real estate assets in order to optimize their valuation. The asset manager, responsible for a portfolio of properties and investment decision-maker, therefore assesses the earning opportunities of a real estate investment and confronts them with the resulting risks.

Property management (PM)

Property management concerns the daily operational management of a real estate portfolio (leases, works, rental management, emergency management related to buildings, etc.). He is thus a property manager with a fairly broad spectrum of action, which requires various skills, such as legal, administrative, financial or even technical.

BIM

We have addressed the concept of BIM (for Building Information Modeling) in various articles, in particular addressing how to define your level of geometric detail (LOD) according to his needs, or how to use it as part of an accessibility project. Here we want to recall a brief definition in order to give our readers the same level of understanding about the following elements. For us, the digital model of the building is composed of three inseparable elements:

• a 3D model;
• an organized database of book information;
• a project management method.

How to adopt a BIM approach for its built heritage?

The main difficulty, when a technical asset management approach wants to be implemented, concerns the acquisition and maintenance of management, operation and maintenance data. The problem is even more important when deploying a BIM facility management approach on an existing asset that is not designed in BIM. This is explained by the lack of structure of the DOE (File of Executed Works) sent to the Facility Manager and which will be necessary for him when planning future works and developments. This contractual document drawn up following the execution of works and delivered to the project owner upon delivery of the site contains a large amount of information and documents (plans, technical data sheets, photos, etc.) from a multitude of stakeholders who are therefore difficult to organize.

Define operation/maintenance needs at the design stage

With the arrival of BIM in construction projects, production efforts are being moved over time. Indeed, on a “traditional” project, we tended to consider that the efforts were maximum during the execution of the work (synthesis, production of plans, reevaluation of calculation notes, etc.). Today, production is optimal during the design phase, the objective is clear: it is necessary to reduce the additional costs that appear during the carrying out of the work and avoid doing the work in several stages. To do this, all the actors involved in the building must be integrated from the start, and in particular the facility managers who must define their needs and deliverables, which is not always the case.

As you can see, many players such as architects, surveyors, design offices or construction and maintenance companies work around a digital model and most often with business software that is specific to them: CAD solutions, CMMS or BMS tools integrated into the BIM model for example. Once this first phase of defining the needs and structuring of the BIM approach has been carried out, how can we subsequently ensure the good exchange and the good updating of this data as the project progresses between all the stakeholders?

Facilitate data exchange

Use the IFC format

IFC is an open (non-proprietary) standardized standard (ISO/PAS 16739) whose acronym stands for Industry Foundation Classes. It uses the STEP structure (standard for product data exchange, ISO 1030321). The use of this format makes it possible to structure, organize and prioritize information, in order to facilitate the interoperability of digital models in all the different BIM software on the market.

Formalize exchanges thanks to the COBie format

COBie is the acronym for an international standard that stands for: “Construction Operations Building Information Exchange”. This structure makes it possible to manage the exchanges of non-graphic data necessary for the facility manager to manage the maintenance and operation of a building throughout its life cycle. This standard is presented in the form of an Excel table including several tabs including:

• COBie Facility: project parameters used in the modeling;
• COBie Floor: information about the vertical levels of the project;
• COBie space: information on spaces;
• etc.

Classify your data

Numerous classifications exist and allow data to be sorted. This step is essential to optimize the search and therefore the updating of information throughout the life cycle of a BIM model. Today, there are two main classifications: Omniclass and Uniclass.

These classifications make it possible to homogenize the vocabulary between the actors concerning the names of the elements constituting the model.

These formats and classification are the main elements to ensure a clear definition of the elements constituting the model (data classification), a fluid exchange between all the actors and their various business software in the design and construction phase (IFC) as well as an exhaustive gateway to operation and maintenance (COBie). However, when looking at what exists, ensuring that information is retrieved and updated throughout the building's life cycle is the phase that can be critical.

Have reliable and up-to-date information

The importance of information in the BIM model

As we have already specified, today with the creation of projects in BIM, the work effort is no longer during the execution of the work, but in the programming and design phase. The information is then better defined and acquired throughout the project. But what about existing projects? How do you identify, make reliable and transmit the right information to the right stakeholders?

During the design phase, the BIM model in use is used in particular to define shapes, spaces, generic objects such as windows and technical systems. The progression from the design phase to the execution phase is enriched with data concerning the materials, the details and particularities of the spaces, as well as all the equipment of the project. The “manufacturer” data are thus filled in in this phase. The last phase of operation and maintenance contains a considerable amount of information for a smaller ratio of graphs.

On an existing building, it is then a question of producing the “AS-built” BIM model. The first step is then to perform a 3D survey of the building (geometry, technical equipment, structural composition,...) in order to obtain a precise image of the assets to be managed. Traditionally, this survey is carried out on site with a meter, a lasermeter and gluing planes. Today it is possible to use a 3D scan of the entire building which will then be used as a layer for BIM modeling. This 3D survey can be enriched with several types of information such as 360° photos, technical instructions, manual annotations, etc.

The objective will then be to reproduce reality as faithfully as possible while knowing that a BIM model can “deform” it. For example, a wall or floor can be modelled rectilinearly without taking into account cracks or deformations that have appeared over time if the project developer's request does not include a sufficiently high level of detail.

The digital model, a medium opening up to a multitude of use cases

As you will have understood, one of the main challenges identified in the implementation of BIM for Operations and Maintenance Management concerns the acquisition, structuring and keeping data up to date. It is essential to integrate, if possible from the design phase, the expectations and needs of the facility manager, in order to ensure that they are properly taken into account by all actors interacting with the digital model. Thus, the BIM model can be fully exploited in use cases that can be very varied. We will discuss its potential and its uses in building management in the second part of this part on BIM and maintenance operations.

To go further:

What is the IFC format?

What is the COBie format?

BIM: classification systems

How do you use classification systems?